


worship me not, love me until the end

by hesselives



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: (mostly), A bit of gore, Backstory, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Gen, Historical References, Immortal Origin Story, Immortal Wives, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mythological References, Pre-Canon, a bit of angst, a bit of humor, deification, quynh-centric, sapphic romance - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:14:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25521949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hesselives/pseuds/hesselives
Summary: Five times Andromache and Quynh have passed into legend + one time they created their own myth.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Quynh | Noriko, Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko
Comments: 75
Kudos: 241





	1. part 1

1\. the daughter of ares

“Andromache, let’s go!”

Her mother’s voice rings out across the campsite, snapping Andromache out of her daze. She glances down once more at the dead man whose eye was pierced through with her arrow. Arrows aren’t exactly a precious commodity, but she worked hard on the latest batch, aligning the feathers just right. The feathers are a rare blue, and she’ll be damned if she lets a dead man keep them.

The eye pops out with a bloody squelch as she yanks the arrow free, and she shakes it until the eye falls to the ground, rolling away until a large crow hovering nearby swoops down and snatches it up in its beak.

She whistles for her horse, who trots over dutifully, and swings her leg over its back.

Their tribe may be a nomadic one, but lately their departures are hastened by roving bandits who always make the mistake of thinking a group of women easy prey.

“Mother,” Andromache says, looking back to where fat black flies are already buzzing and gorging themselves, “should we take their horses and weapons to sell?”

Her mother shakes her head. “Leave them. We need to ride fast and travel light.” She wheels her own horse around and urges it into a gallop. “ _Hamazan_ , to me!” she cries out to her warriors.

A flurry of noises follows – the sound of blades being sheathed, the sharp _hyahs_ of warriors to their steeds, and the thundering of hooves as they ride after their chieftain. They wait for no-one, and Andromache squeezes her thighs, silently encouraging her horse to keep up. She may be the youngest at fifteen years old, but she’s managed to prove herself a warrior again today. Her older sisters have already earned the title of _oiorpata_ , the men-slayers, and their reputation have begun to spread outside their tribe.

One day, when she reaches her full strength, she hopes to surpass them.

When they reach the main camp, near the base of the northern mountains, they are immediately met by the _enarei_ , shamans who have dedicated their lives to the goddess Argimpasa and foretell the future through her divine prophecies.

“Praise be to Ares, god of war,” they echo to the chieftain.

“May Ares bless us always,” she replies solemnly. She hands over her labrys, deemed the Dual Blades of Ares by her ancestors, and the younger shamans quickly carry it away for ritual purification.

She then waves a dismissive hand, and the warriors all fall back, sighing tiredly as they begin tending to their horses and inquiring about food.

The head shaman sidles up to her, clad in a rich embroidered dress worthy of Argimpasa herself. He casts his gaze over the warriors with unusually intense curiosity.

“No deaths today?”

“None of our own,” she says, stretching out her right shoulder with a groan. She raises an eyebrow at him. “Why? Did you foresee any?”

He exhales quietly and motions for her to follow him.

He leads her to a large metal basin that serves as the nexus of the shamans’ altar to the gods.

“We received a prophecy while you were away,” he says, clasping his hands together.

The chieftain tilts her head. “Go on.”

He gestures towards the contents of the basin, and she peers down, seeing the usual strips of burnt linden bark that the shamans use to interpret Argimpasa’s divine messages.

“Watch,” the head shaman says, as he lowers a torch to the basin.

The dry and already-blackened strips immediately catch fire, releasing a bitter smoke and curling into ash—

All except the smallest strip, which continues to inexplicably burn, long after the others crumble away.

“What does it mean?” the chieftain asks, frowning.

“It means there is one among us who is destined to carry the divine fire of life. One who cannot die.”

“What?” she says, eyes widening. “How is that possible? Are you sure?”

“There is no doubt about it,” he says. “But whether it’s a curse or a blessing from Ares himself— that we do not know.”

“Surely it is a blessing,” she says, still feeling stunned.

The head shaman shakes his head. “The gods do not take without reason, and do not give without reason. Like the god Oitosyros, who balances life and death upon his golden scales, such a great gift will have a great cost.”

He brushes his hand through the linden ash, unflinching as the last surviving strip burns his fingertips.

She remains silent for a while. “If it is the will of the gods, then we will heed it,” she says eventually. “Do we know whose destiny this is?”

“No, not yet,” he says. “The gods will reveal who it is when the time is right.”

She dips her head towards the basin in respect, her long dark braids falling forward.

Several years pass, and Andromache grows stronger, her dark-gold skin stretched taut over corded muscles, warmed by the brilliance of the sun. She’s swifter and more powerful than even her sisters, and her mother looks upon her with pride.

As a chieftain, she is always prepared to bury her fallen warriors in the _kurgan_ tombs beneath the earth. To place gilded drinking horns in their cold and calloused hands, so that they may celebrate properly with Ares in the afterlife. She has prepared herself for it, for many years now.

But as a mother, she prays her daughters will outlive her. That she will not have to endure the grief of having her heart broken.

She gathers her daughters together in her tent, and strokes their cheeks.

“The Assyrian warlords are coming,” she says, taking a deep breath. “They slaughtered our sister tribe in the south and took the survivors as their own.”

Her daughters stare at her grimly. They all know what that means.

“They will come for us next, before the winter settles upon us. They will want to claim the lands we roam as part of their growing empire. The lands that were given to us by the gods.” She wills herself not to tremble in anger. “I will send our shamans and our skillswomen over the mountains to safety. But we will stay and stand our ground. We are the _hamazan_ , the daughters of Ares. And the Assyrians will know true fear when they face us.”

“We will prevail, mother,” her two oldest daughters grit out with iron conviction. But Andromache remains silent.

“What is it you want to say, my youngest?” the chieftain says, noting Andromache’s clenched fists.

“I don’t want to be separated from you,” Andromache says in a rush, looking suddenly very young.

Her mother can’t help but smile. Andromache has always used her words like arrows, straight and true, unfailingly honest.

“We will always find each other, in this life or beyond,” she says, drawing Andromache into a warm embrace. “We are family.” She pulls back, addressing all three of them. “Protect each other. Conserve your energy. Strike as the serpent does – where the blood runs deepest.”

Her mother’s last words echo distantly in Andromache’s ears, through the pounding of her heartbeat, the blood-sprayed fog of battle. The Assyrian warlords’ armies have suffered heavy losses at the swift hands of the Scythian warriors, but their numbers are still greater, thundering into them again and again with long spears and silver blades.

Andromache feels numb, standing desperately over the bodies of her sisters, as the warriors she’s known her whole life are brutally slain, one by one.

A cold rage comes over her, blinding and terrible, as one of the warlords lifts her mother’s severed head in the air. Her hand flies to her bow, and her arrow punches him through the throat, knocking him off his horse, and he gurgles helplessly as he chokes on his own blood.

The rest of the men immediately whirl upon her, loosing arrows of their own, and Andromache screams as she feels the barbed arrows tear through her flesh. She claws through mud and the stench of the dead, the agony of her pain lancing through her whole body. One of the men crouches down beside her, grinning cruelly as he grabs her braids, laughing to the others, “This little fox has teeth!” 

And she spits blood right into his face, before she crumples to the ground, feeling the last of her breath leave her lungs.

But when she opens her eyes, she is not in the afterlife. There is no fountain of golden ambrosia to drink, no elysian fields upon which she can ride and reunite with her mother and sisters.

She is gasping and heaving up blood, hands scrabbling in the dirt, arms shaking violently as she lifts herself off the ground. She stares numbly at the barbed arrows that lie scattered around her.

“What—?” she rasps out in disbelief, fingers digging through crusted blood and mud, searching for wounds that are no longer there.

The distant, raucous laughter of the surviving warlords seeps into her consciousness like poison. Her rage returns with a cold fury and she clambers to her feet, seeing nothing but red. Her boots are soaked through with blood and nearly slip on the viscera that lay rotting on the battlefield. But her eyes are fixated on her mother’s labrys, the glory of Ares, the dual-headed axe that has long defended their tribe.

Trampled in the mud. Fallen from its rightful wielder.

Andromache grasps the handle, pulling it free, and nearly stops breathing as a fierce and sudden grief overtakes her. She clings to the labrys, throat aching with unshed tears, feeling as if she’s cradling her mother’s spirit in her hands.

She forces herself to walk forward, towards the warlords who are sniping at each other over how to divide up the land. As if they hadn’t decimated her whole family, her sisters-in-arms, her very soul.

“Like hell I’m going to be stuck with the northern region without getting a piece of the coast—” one warlord snarls before he pauses, catching sight of a young woman moving steadily towards them, looking like she crawled through hell itself. “What’s this?”

“Didn’t we—” another warlord says hesitantly. “I thought we killed her? No-one could have survived that many arrows.”

“Tougher than she looks then,” the first warlord grits out, pulling an arrow from his quiver and aiming it at her forehead.

The arrow hits its target with a sickening crunch.

“There,” he sniffs. “We put the little fox out of her misery.”

Yet something compels them to stay, as if to make sure their eyes aren’t being deceived.

She stirs and groans, the arrow gradually pushing out of her until it falls to the ground, the hole in her head knitting itself together. Her hand clenches around the handle of the labrys once more, and she lifts her head to stare at the warlords with a furious gaze.

“The seven gods preserve us,” one of the warlords cries out fearfully.

“They will not save you,” Andromache hisses, and she surges forward, swinging the labrys in swift and deadly arcs until the last warlord is beheaded.

But even this does not bring her any semblance of peace, and she trembles with exhaustion as she drags the bodies of the fallen warriors into a long row across the field. She lays down her mother’s body beside the bodies of her sisters. Her mother’s head is carefully wrapped in a red scarf, her long braids gently cleaned and straightened out. She sends a silent prayer of apology to Ares for not giving them the burial they deserve. She asks that he forgive her and accept them all into his arms, the _hamazan_ who have honored him well.

The labrys weighs heavy in her hand, as if it carries all the souls who have died by its blow.

She doesn’t remember crossing the mountains, but she must have, because she finds herself standing in front of the _enarei_ , whose faces become ashen upon seeing her alone.

The head shaman feels his heart break, as he takes in the sight of Andromache’s deathly pallor and haunted stare.

“It seems,” he says through his tears, “that Ares has chosen you, my child.”

“I don’t want to be chosen,” she says, voice hitching as she sinks down, curling into herself. She buries her face in her knees, like she often did as a child, her tears soaking the fabric of her pants. “I don’t want any of this. I want my family back.”

“I want them back,” she sobs into his shoulder, as the head shaman kneels to embrace her, helpless to take away her boundless grief.

+

2\. the fifth immortal

“Quynh, stop dawdling.”

She looks over sullenly at her father, who is motioning impatiently for her to finish tying her ceremonial robe. It’s simple but shines at the edges with gold thread; the only nice thing that she’s allowed to own. (She would trade it in an instant for a decent _locbnua_ bow and a quiver of arrows.)

Her father is fretting needlessly over their upcoming meeting with a general from a nearby state, who is serving the current Hung king. On the surface, they’re going to ‘have tea’ with him and ‘discuss business opportunities for supplying his armies,’ but Quynh knows what it’s really about.

Marriage.

She’s sixteen now and she loathes her age with every fiber of her being. Her older brother is free to do what he likes, and he isn’t even good at anything in particular. It’s monumentally unfair.

“Have you been practicing your _xoan_ songs, like I’ve been telling you to do?” her father says anxiously, shuffling up and down the hallways of their home, looking for something. “You’ll be expected to perform your best in front of the general. He’s very important, you know.”

“Uh huh,” she says flatly. (She practiced a grand total of once last week. Flowery folk songs always bore her to literal tears.)

“You’re so pretty, Quynh,” her father sighs with a frown, pausing to brush imaginary dust from her shoulders. “Just like your mother, may she rest in peace. You should smile more, like she did. What do you have to scowl about anyway? Do you not have a nice roof over your head? Good food and _xoan_ lessons?”

Her scowl deepens.

“Keep that up and your face is going to stick like that forever,” he admonishes before shuffling away again, muttering to himself. “Where did I put that bronze tiger? It would make an excellent gift…”

She slumps onto a bench and glares at her brother, who waltzes in with a grilled shrimp dangling out the side of his mouth.

“Well, look at you!” he says, grinning as he chews. “Ready to be a general’s wife?”

“Ugh, shut up,” she snaps. “Wait until father starts arranging _your_ marriage. See if you’re laughing then, idiot.”

“Oh, but my wife won’t be a musty old general,” he says with an exaggerated flair. “She’ll be a beauty with unblemished skin and the voice of a songbird. And an excellent cook! I just know it.”

“Good luck with that,” Quynh scoffs.

She resolutely doesn’t think about how much nicer his imaginary wife sounds, compared to a wrinkled old man. She doesn’t think about how she could actually live a good life with a wife like that.

“Quynh!” her father shouts, fluffing his robes and striding over to inspect her nails. “Good, good. Come, we must depart now.”

He ushers her into a small enclosed _kieu_ on wheels, hitched to a sturdy-looking horse.

“Okay, you can just—sit there until we arrive,” he says to her awkwardly, peering inside through the sheer fabric draped across the windows.

“Tell me you didn’t buy this thing,” she says instead, eyeing the interior skeptically. “It’s a waste of money.”

“It’s not a waste. It’s for your future,” he says, frowning. “Our family’s future.”

“You’re selling me,” she says tightly. “Let’s not pretend otherwise.”

“Just—don’t, Quynh. Don’t do this,” he sighs, throwing his hands up in exasperation. He marches away and continues muttering to himself. “I’ll never marry her out at this rate. Who would want a wife like her?”

“No-one, I hope,” she says to herself, making a face.

She crosses her arms and sulks the entire way there, ignoring her father’s loud comments on the lovely scenery they’re passing by.

Her entire body is stiff and sore, as she clambers out of the _kieu_ , immediately stepping foot into a mud puddle.

“Fuck,” she says out loud.

“Are you kidding me?” her father hisses, as she attempts to surreptitiously drag the mud off on a nearby patch of grass.

“Nobody’s going to notice,” she mutters, as she tries (ineffectually) to pull down the hem of her robes.

“You had better pray to all Four Immortal Gods that the general doesn’t take offense to this,” he grits out through his teeth.

They climb up polished stone steps into a grand courtyard, at the center of which sits a rather absurdly large carving of a dragon, surrounded by a lotus pond.

“Magnificent dragon,” her father says obsequiously to the servants, who merely stare back at him in silence.

“The general will see you now,” one of them says with a bow, leading them through tall red pillars into the reception room.

They step over the threshold with their heads bowed respectfully, their assistant hastening behind them with the pile of gifts towering in his arms.

“Welcome, welcome,” a gruff voice says to them.

They lift their heads and—

It takes all of Quynh’s willpower not to turn tail and run off into the nearby jungle to live out life as a single nomad.

“Oh, by all that the gods hold dear, he’s _ancient_ ,” her brother whispers under his breath.

Their father sneaks out a foot behind his robes to kick them both in the ankles. “He’s _seasoned_ ,” he hisses to them, then smiles deferentially to their host. “O great general, we are most honored to make your acquaintance.”

“Most honored,” Quynh and her brother echo flatly.

“May Tan Vien strike me down this very moment,” she mutters quietly.

“Don’t you mean Chu Dong Tu?” he mutters back.

“Love is not even part of the equation here, stupid. This is a natural disaster in the making.”

“I really am sorry, little sister,” he whispers, actually sounding sympathetic for the first time. “Maybe he’ll die soon and you can inherit this nice house.”

“And when have women been allowed to inherit anything? I swear, your brain is the size of those shrimp you like so much—”

“And this is my daughter, Quynh,” her father announces loudly, turning around to glare mightily at them.

“Blessings be upon you, general,” she utters with a smile that looks more like a grimace, and she automatically clasps her hands above her waist, bending into graceful bow.

The general inclines his head, leaning forward to squint at her. (Is he already losing his vision? Gods, she hopes so.)

“Yes, Quynh, you say? A very pretty name.”

“You are too kind, general,” she says, fighting against the urge to throw up.

“Pretty like the moon,” the general continues awkwardly.

“Surely not,” she replies, desperate to divert his attention. “Ah, father, perhaps the general would like to see the gifts? All the gifts?” She waves at the poor assistant, who seems to be buckling under their combined weight.

“Oh yes,” her father says hastily. “Just a few humble gifts, general, to show our appreciation for your hospitality.”

“This is too much. No gifts are necessary,” the general says politely, but his eyes light up with glee.

One thing leads to another, and much to Quynh’s disgust, the dreaded evening arrives when she finds herself locked in an ostentatious bedroom with an incredibly old man who is practically straddling death’s door.

“What a great wedding it was, wasn’t it?” he says with a burp, rubbing his overly large belly. “Went much more smoothly than my last one.”

“Yeah, great,” she says, resolutely clutching her robe closed and sitting as far away from the bed as possible.

“Oh, don’t be shy,” he says with a sudden leer. “We’re husband and wife now.”

“In another life, I could be your grandchild,” she says hotly, hoping distantly that this will put him off all marital relations forever.

It doesn’t.

He wobbles drunkenly as he reaches out to grab her arm, his expression going from pleading to angry when she twists out of his grasp.

“Don’t touch me,” she snaps.

“You are my _property_ ,” he snarls, lunging forward again.

Feeling every hair on her body stand up in revulsion, she snatches a sharp pin from her hair and brandishes it at him. “I said _don’t_.”

He laughs at her until tears begin to stream down his face.

Quynh has never felt so humiliated in her life. 

Is this really how the rest of her life is going to go? A prisoner? A child-wife? An obedient baby-maker?

He seizes her forearm and uses his sheer weight to bend it painfully backwards, his wine-soaked breath hot on her face. “Do not disobey me. _Ever._ ”

But she keeps a tight grip on the pin, screaming as he throws her to the floor.

And the general stares in shock, as the pin is plunged through her throat, entirely by accident.

Quynh’s throat convulses, as she opens her mouth, trying to gasp for breath through the pool of blood spilling from her neck.

“Quynh?” he says faintly, his hands shaking as his drunken stupor fades abruptly.

Her eyes are wide, staring into nothing, as she slumps to the floor. Her long black hair spills over her bloodless face.

“Oh gods, what do I do?” he says, voice rising into hysterics.

A thousand thoughts run through his mind as he paces the room, clutching his head in his hands. His heart is beating dangerously fast, and he feels like he’s about to pass out.

Except a wet gurgle startles him into whirling around, and he staggers backwards into the wall, looking for all the world like he’s seen a ghost.

Which, to be fair— is close enough.

Quynh coughs for what feels like eternity, as the hair pin slides itself out of her throat, falling with a metallic ping to the ground.

“Holy Lieu Hanh, what the hell just happened?” she rasps out, her fingers running frantically across her unblemished throat.

Her husband releases what can only be described as a silent scream of abject terror.

Quynh finds that she rather likes that look on him, and she grins, baring her blood-stained teeth.

“Four Immortals, please save me,” he wails pathetically. “I’ll do anything, I swear, anything.”

She immediately seizes her advantage, drawing herself up to her full height and looming over his crouching, terrified form. “You swore to the Four Immortals, _husband_. Our most sacred gods who have seen fit to keep me here a while longer.” She grips his chin in her bloodied hand, squeezing until his drool drips down his cowardly neck. “If you do not heed me, your soul will be cursed to wander in agony across the earth for all eternity.” She leans down to hiss into his ear. “Is that understood?”

He nods frantically, desperately.

“Good,” she says with a sweetly satisfied smile. “Then—blessings be upon you, general.”

And it is thus, for the rest of the general’s short and fearful life, Quynh forges ahead to carve out the life she’s always dreamed of.

Firstly, out of deep gratitude to the Four Immortals who have spared her an ignominious death for mysterious reasons, she orders half the compound to be converted into massive temples dedicated to each of them.

Secondly, not only is she never touched again by the perverted general, but she neither sees nor hears from him, unless they absolutely have to appear together under pretense of being husband and wife. If anyone notices her frostiness and his terror, they shrug and chalk it up to standard arranged marriage side effects.

Thirdly, she redistributes his ill-gotten wealth to the servants and the surrounding villages, making sure nobody ever has to go hungry. In the lands under her jurisdiction, she establishes schools and thoroughly abolishes arranged marriages. Traditionalist hard-liners decry her progressive decisions, but her oddly-reclusive husband always emerges to back her up, wielding his status as general, and they have no choice but to accept them.

Lastly, she recruits the best weapons masters in the entire state to come for years at a time to train her in all manners of warfare, from wielding the powerful _no_ crossbow, to the narrow _guom_ saber, to the long _lao_ javelin.

She learns it all with a fierce and determined grin.

Never again will she be left defenseless.

Later, as time passes by, whispers spread of a strange and beautiful widow, who is not particularly sad about being a widow (in fact seems to enjoy it thoroughly), and who forever rides her horse to distant lands beneath the luminous moon, blessed with an agelessness that could only be a gift from the Four Immortals themselves.

 _Perhaps she is the Fifth Immortal_ , they speculate and add her quietly to their prayers, just in case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. ancient religions & mythologies referenced: scythian/greek, vietnamese
> 
> 2\. fic has been edited to revise 'ca tru' (ceremonial singing) to 'xoan' (folk singing), as 'xoan' is a much older art form.
> 
> 3\. please note that in ancient vietnam (back when various states were ruled under the hung kings, and vietnam as a nation didn't exist yet), 'kieu' vehicles were not invented yet, and the goddess lieu hanh was a much later addition to the four immortals religion/mythology. (many thanks to felicia for the historical pointers!)


	2. part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is mostly quynh-centric!

3\. the destroyer of the ones who cannot die

Quynh is tired of people.

Tired of their demands, their expectations, their inconstant loyalties and terrible short-sightedness.

She doesn’t want to be around them anymore, and so she sojourns alone across foreign northern lands, across untrodden grass and pristine snow, far from well-worn roads. Away from clan wars and politics and the never-ending cycle of bloodshed that always precedes a new ruler in power.

Not too long ago, on a rare urban stopover to replenish spices, she caught wind of rumors concerning strange wanderers in the western lands, who lead monastic lives and speak fervently of a spiritual teacher named Gautama Buddha. Ordinarily, she would have dismissed it as one of the endless variations of religion that flow in and out of existence. But then she hears of their rejection of societal institutions, their singular quest to attain _moksha_ , or liberation from an endless cycle of birth and death.

And she can’t help but wonder, _Are these wanderers like me?_

So she begins to head westward, feeling something inside her churn up from dust, like an ancient artifact being unearthed. She doesn’t want to call it hope— but neither can she deny the distant notion that perhaps they have answers. Answers that she had stopped searching for centuries ago, accepting with bitterness the silence of the gods.

By day, she traverses the southern edge of the great Tibetan plateau, and spends her nights huddled in her tent, sheltered from the high winds at the base of the _Himachal_ mountains. The water given to the earth by the mountains, under the warmth of the sun, is cold and beautifully clear. But that same water that gives life during the day threatens to take it away at night, transforming into ice that swallows the death knell of anyone who attempts to tread it.

Even she, who is blessed – or cursed – with eternal life, does not dare to challenge the forces of nature, which are far older than she is and imbued with a kind of power that will always lie out of human reach.

She finds a certain comfort in that, even as the chill seeps through her bedroll.

As she sinks into sleep, a long-familiar dream finds her again, one of a young woman with dark braided hair and a fiery gaze. A nomadic warrior, Quynh guesses, from her clothing and her weapons. In her dream, the woman is always alone, always on the move, as if she’s searching for something. The woman sometimes speaks and shouts, but it’s always in a language she doesn’t know. The woman sometimes cries and buries her face in her knees, but it’s always done in silence. 

Her pain feels real, a deep and soul-rending loss that aches inside Quynh, as if the pain is her own.

She wakes at dawn, her eyes blinking slowly, tiredly, until the ache fades away.

She has no idea why she has these dreams. What she’s supposed to do with them. If they even mean anything at all. All part of the many unanswered questions she had originally left behind in her native homeland. At least, unanswered for now. She’ll have to ask Gautama Buddha if recurring dreams have any significance in the cycle of _samsara_ , the reincarnation that must be suffered over and over again until they break free.

She takes a deep breath and blows warm air into her stiff hands, until they’re limber enough to pull out the stakes from rock-hard earth and pack away her tent. Her hardy Mongolian horse looks completely unbothered by the frigid chill of the morning, ignoring her whistle as it nibbles at tufts of mountain grass. Quynh huffs and tries not to find it charming.

She had gotten it from a horse trader some time ago, and managed to haggle a decent barter in broken Sanskrit, letting go of some silver bracelets from her wedded days. Jewelry holds no sentimental value to her, but it’s been quite useful so far, especially when she doesn’t know what counts as currency in most of the lands she travels through.

“ _Ashva_ ,” the horse trader had said repeatedly, and Quynh had thought for a brief moment that perhaps that was the name of the horse she had chosen. But then she quickly figured out that _all_ the horses were _ashva_ , and somehow she felt a little bit better about that.

She doesn’t want to form attachments to things that she’ll outlive.

There’s certainly nothing wrong with calling a horse, well, a horse.

“Come on, _ashva_ , let’s go,” she says as she finishes strapping on her tent and bedroll.

They eventually wind their way south, towards the Indus Valley River, where the soil of the farmlands is black and rich. She’s still generally avoidant of people, but she’s also tired of subsisting entirely on dried goat meat. There’s nothing wrong with goat jerky – in fact, it travels very well – but she misses rice and the enjoyment of eating a dish with complex flavors that she just can’t replicate in the wild. (She’s tried.)

What she didn’t expect to see, as she rides past fields of rice and barley, are the constant comings and goings of military troops. There’s no consistency in their looks or demeanors, and she wonders if they might be mercenaries. She quickly switches out her clothing to local garb and ducks her head to avoid unwanted attention.

“Who are they?” she asks one day in stilted Sanskrit, glancing over at a group of soldiers wearing expensive-looking uniforms and bearing wide shields.

The grim-faced restaurant owner, who is using a cloth to wipe down bowls and plates, answers curtly. “Elite soldiers.”

“Elite?” she repeats, brow furrowed.

“Best.”

“Ah,” she nods in understanding. “Why best? Kill many people?”

The owner’s jaw tightens. “Yes. They killed many. Took over our land.”

“No army here? Not fight back?”

“The army was all killed. The elite soldiers cannot die.”

Quynh startles. She must have heard wrong. “Cannot die?”

The owner sighs heavily and frowns. “They call themselves _anausa_ in their language. The ones who cannot die.”

A prickling of unease begins to tingle over her skin. “But— all people die.”

(Not quite true, but nobody needs to know.)

The owner shrugs and throws the dishcloth over his shoulder, carrying the stack of clean bowls away.

A sudden shriek outside startles Quynh, and she peers out from behind the doorjamb in curiosity. She has long learned not to get involved in matters that don’t directly concern her. It hardly ends well for anyone.

But she swears under her breath, as she sees one of the ‘elite’ soldiers drag a young girl by her hair out of a nearby shop and into the street. The girl can’t be older than fourteen. An older woman who resembles her – her mother, probably – is rushing out after her, pleading frantically.

“Pay tax now,” the soldier growls in Sanskrit. “Or we take girl.”

Another soldier is issuing orders in a language she doesn’t recognize, motioning for the girl to be bound and taken away. The girl weeps and struggles, her fingers clawing against the fist wrapped around her hair. The mother tries to hold on tightly to her daughter, but the soldier gives her a swift kick in the ribs, and the mother falls to the ground with a sharp cry.

Quynh clenches her fists and feels a long-dormant rage rise up inside her chest, but her feet remain still. The last time she had intervened with her saber, many years ago, the soldiers had come back to the village after she had left. They had punished the villagers severely, torturing them for information on her whereabouts, and she had deeply regretted her actions since.

Her heart beats frantically as the girl releases a fearful wail.

Perhaps she can try a different way, a more peaceable solution that wouldn’t draw the attention of whoever commands these soldiers.

She draws her travel robe tightly around her, concealing her various blades, and steps out slowly onto the street.

She raises her hands up and says loudly to the soldiers, “I give tax for them.”

The soldiers abruptly turn around and glare at her. “Who are you?” one of them snarls.

“I give tax for them,” she repeats, slowly pulling a set of gold rings out and displaying them on her outstretched palm. “I give tax. You let go girl.”

The soldiers look at each other, full of skepticism. One of them strides forward and snatches the gold rings from her palm, immediately biting down on them to verify their worth. He nods sharply at his comrades. The gold is real.

The girl is released and thrown to the ground.

Quynh breathes a sigh of relief, but it turns out to be short-lived, as the soldier levels a harsh glare at her.

“Where is rest?” he demands.

“What?” she says, her heart sinking.

“Rest of tax,” he hisses. “Many months, town not pay full tax. You can pay, right?”

Quynh curses to herself. “No, cannot pay,” she grits out.

He looks her up and down, leering. “Then we take you.”

He grabs her forearm, and Quynh reacts immediately on instinct, plunging a sharp knife into his wrist. She stares as he screams in pain, and shakes as she realizes what she’s done. She’s making the same mistake again. Another town will have to pay for her choices.

He had grabbed her— and her body had violently rejected it, as her distant memory of the general surged up like a tidal wave.

She glances desperately at her horse, who is tied to a post near the restaurant, but if she flees—

There’s no way the soldiers would leave the girl alone. No way they wouldn’t punish the whole town.

She unsheathes her _dao_ saber, its long curved blade shining silver in the sunlight.

She will have to see this through to the end.

The soldiers gape at her for a brief moment, before laughing uncomfortably, as if they can’t quite believe a strange woman would take them all on at once. One of them steps forward, dropping his shield and casually drawing out his sword.

She shifts her weight towards the balls of her feet, and her eyes fixate on his shoulders, to anticipate his next move.

He lunges exactly where she predicted he would, and she swiftly sidesteps him, her blade slicing a deep gash into his side. He releases a sharp cry and whirls around, gripping his side as it spills blood onto the ground. His eyes narrow, full of rage, and Quynh readjusts her grip. He won’t be underestimating her from here on out.

He swings his sword at her head, opting for brute force, and she blocks it, her body shifting like water to redirect his energy away from her. He stumbles but quickly rights himself, throwing out a hand signal to stop his comrades from interfering. His pride won’t let them, as with most men, and that’s what Quynh is counting on.

Though she has the hidden advantage of centuries of experience, she questions to herself if these soldiers are truly elite. If they truly cannot die. She sees no evidence so far, as she eyes the soldier’s wound, which is still sluggishly bleeding.

He circles her like a hawk while she stands still, a serpent laying in wait to strike at the perfect moment.

The sun beats down on them, and she feels beads of sweat dripping down the side of her face.

A sudden shout from another soldier distracts her for a split second, but that’s all he needs to rush forward, sword held aloft in one hand but a hidden knife plunging between her ribs with the other.

Her own blade runs through his abdomen, up to the hilt, and she twists it viciously before kicking his slumping body off of her. She groans in pain, clenching her teeth as she yanks out the knife. It was careless of her to let herself be distracted, she thinks. There’s a brief moment of panic as her blood continues to seep from her wound, but then she feels the tell-tale stabs of pain as her body gradually knits itself back together.

She crouches beside him, one eye trained on his abdomen and the other on the soldiers who are staring at her, stupefied.

The abdominal wound remains open. He doesn’t even stir. She almost feels disappointed.

She stands again, as if she hadn’t had a knife plunged in her at all, and turns to face the remaining soldiers, shouting at them, “Are you not _anausa_?”

The soldiers remain silent as they unsheathe their swords.

She lifts her saber once more. “Try again. Maybe you die. Maybe not.”

The fight lasts much longer this time, and at the end of it, she staggers tiredly to her feet, feeling the deep gashes across her throat and her chest slowly mend themselves.

Her clothes are soaked through with blood, and she feels its stickiness begin to coagulate over her skin.

She stares at the soldiers’ severed heads which lie scattered around her feet, like a grotesque garland.

She breathes and she waits.

All the heads remain decapitated and all the bodies remain dead. None of them are immortal after all.

She exhales slowly and inexplicably feels lonelier than ever.

The entire street is silent, and she can feel the people’s shocked and fearful stares.

The restaurant owner is the only one who dares to come near her, and he hands her a rag without uttering a single word, his eyes impossibly wide.

“Thank you,” she says hoarsely, using it to wipe her face. She gives him a worried look. “More soldiers maybe come. They maybe look for me. You tell them I go west. Maybe they not hurt you.”

He remains silent for a while until he finally says, “It seems you are the true _anausa_. Did the gods send you?”

She shakes her head. “No. I am— human.”

The owner’s expression hardens and his wrinkles seem to sink deeper into his grim face. “More soldiers will come. But we will tell them of a curse placed upon our town. One that destroys even the ones who cannot die. They will leave us alone.”

“A curse,” she says quietly, rolling the new word over her tongue. “Yes.”

At dusk, after the soldiers’ bodies are burned, she rides out swiftly and continues her journey westward, feeling a stronger pull than ever to find the renowned Gautama Buddha.

Later, in front of many hearths and communal feasts, the townspeople shape the Vedic legend of an immortal warrior who roams the earth, wielding the divine power of the mother goddess Kali, protector of the innocent and destroyer of evil.

It is Kali who chooses to breathe out life or death, and around her neck lies a garland of severed heads.

+

4\. those who descend from the palmyrene skies

Quynh stares in stunned silence at the group of monastic wanderers she’s finally managed to find, after nearly six months of traveling. (At least her Sanskrit has improved significantly during that time.)

“What?” she says.

“His Holiness Gautama Buddha has gone on a quest,” one of the wanderers repeats kindly.

“Where?” she asks immediately.

“We don’t really know,” another wanderer says mildly, scratching the side of his shaved head. “Some say he has gone in the direction of the great desert to the west. The one that leads to the ocean.”

“The desert?” she echoes. “What’s in the desert?”

“We estimate that there he seeks the true sphere of nothingness. The gateway to awakening from the cycle of _samsara_. But only His Holiness knows,” the wanderer says while the others nod in agreement.

“So,” she says, blinking slowly, “you’re not going to follow him there and find out?”

“No,” the wanderer says patiently. “Every person’s journey is their own. We are most fortunate to have been taught by His Holiness before he left. We must continue to pass on his teachings here.”

She sighs. “Of course.”

“If you are ready to renounce all material burdens, you may join us, if you wish.”

She can’t help but smile. It’s not often that she receives an invitation to join anything. “No, thank you. Perhaps one day though.”

“Then, may you have a safe journey.”

She passes over several coins and inclines her head. “You as well.”

It takes several more months for Quynh to make her way through the arid lands of Parthia, and across the twin rivers, Tigris and Euphrates. She’s passed by many architectural wonders throughout her travels, but nothing quite like the great gates of Babylon. She learns that the most beautiful one is called Ishtar, with its sapphire towers stretching towards the sky.

But the enormous crowds of people coming and going through the gates deter her from lingering, and she continues onwards away from the city, ignoring the curious stares of the locals who answered her questions about the great desert to the west.

More weeks pass by before she finds herself leading her horse to a spring of cold water, surrounded by tall palm trees, near a busy trade route on the fringes of the desert. 

She stares into the vast expanse of sand before her.

The Palmyrene desert, the locals call it.

It seems impossibly wide and endless. A true landscape of nothingness, as the monastic wanderers had said.

But a Bedouin nomad who speaks a bit of Sanskrit laughs at her. “Desert not nothing. Look closer. Has much life.”

She squints at him. “Have you seen a wanderer named Gautama Buddha?”

He raises his eyebrows. “No.”

“They say he’s gone into the desert.” She gestures vaguely at the sand-filled horizon.

“Okay,” he says nonchalantly. “You come or not?” He cants his head towards his tribesmen, who are gearing up to travel across one of their desert migration routes.

“How much for passage?” she asks warily. Her pockets have gotten much lighter through her travels, as her jewelry was traded into countless hands.

He eyes her horse. “Your steed no good for desert. Give to my cousin who lives here. That is price.” He gestures towards his tribe’s camels. “You ride camel. Until end of journey with us.”

She nods, looking her horse in the eye and giving it a few firm pats on the neck. “Farewell, _ashva_. Be good.”

Her horse blinks at her placidly, then snorts as it’s led off by another tribe member.

“Let’s go,” he says, whistling to his men.

She wraps a long scarf around the lower half of her face, and clambers on top of a camel that seems more interested in napping than going on a desert sojourn.

“Up, _djamal_ ,” he commands, prodding the camel to its feet, then peering up at her through the glare of the sun. “You sure you strong enough for journey?”

Her jaw tightens. “I am sure.”

They gradually make their way deeper into the desert, the camels leaving soft imprints in the sand that seem to fade as quickly as they are made.

Days and nights pass in a blur, stretches of extreme heat followed by extreme cold. Quynh swallows down warm camel’s milk, and listens intently to eloquent songs and stories in a language she has no familiarity with. She always scans the horizon for signs of a monastic wanderer, but only finds the shimmer of the sun’s heat upon the sand.

She begins to think that perhaps she’s gone a bit off her rocker, embarking on such an impossible search for a needle in a haystack.

One night, she wakes with a groan and throws a thick shawl around her shoulders, exiting the tent to relieve herself a respectable distance away from the tribe.

But as she finishes and fastens the ties on her pants, she hears a distant rumble that sounds like a storm.

“Damn it,” she mutters to herself as she tries to follow the indents in the sand back to the campsite.

She strains to hear the muffled noises of snores and camel snuffling, but the rumble grows louder, much faster than she anticipated. And something roars into her ears, hitting with the force of a monsoon and knocking the wind out of her. She cries out, hands immediately coming up to cover her head and neck, but the force shrieks and continues blowing over her, silencing her desperate voice.

Eventually, she finds herself losing consciousness, huddled beneath a gale of sand. And her gasps for air fade out into nothing, as the sand buries her in an unseen tomb.

Her body always seems to know what to do, even if her mind does not.

Her hands claw upwards, pushing through thick slippery sand until she surfaces above ground, her throat scraped raw as she coughs violently. She feels like a desiccated being, the desert sucking all moisture and energy from her until only bone-deep dryness is left.

She stares blearily around her, looking desperately for signs of the tribesmen and the camels, but none appear, as if the sandstorm had blown away their very existence. She staggers to her feet and shouts out their names hoarsely, cupping her hands around her parched lips.

But only the wind sweeping across the sand answers her.

She treads slowly in a long spiral, spreading her search outwards, as she intermittently stops to dig through the sand, calling out the same litany of names. The sun nearly sets again, when she finally sinks to her knees in exhaustion, her hands raw and aching. A pressure builds up behind her eyes and she realizes that she wants to cry, but has no tears to shed.

Even that, the desert has taken away from her.

When she curls into the sand and closes her eyes, the woman from her dreams appears once more. Only this time, she is loping determinedly across a sand dune, as if seeking Quynh out here in the desert. Her eyes are shielded from the sun’s glare with kohl smeared black beneath them. And on her back, she carries the same dual-headed axe she always carries.

Maybe she has come to kill Quynh for good. Maybe she has been the embodiment of _moksha_ all this time, sent by the gods in visions until she finally ends Quynh’s time on earth. Maybe she is the one whom Gautama Buddha seeks, here in the great desert of the west, at the world’s end.

But the sun rises in the morning, and the vision fades, leaving Quynh no choice but to press onward in search of desert plants that contain precious drops of water.

Time stretches and thins, as her body soldiers on with the barest of means to keep it alive. Sometimes, she doesn’t even have that, and she finds out what it feels like to die with nothing left inside.

It’s on one such day, after she collapses, that she finds herself waking not to the burning heat of the sun but the cool shade of a sheltered cave.

Her eyes feel strangely free of grit and sand, and she slowly lifts her head up, immediately spotting a small cup of water next to her. She snatches it greedily and gulps it down, afterwards inhaling a shuddering breath of relief.

“ _Ego heuron seauten,_ ” says a low voice from the shadows.

And Quynh bolts upright, hand flying to her knife. Her eyes grow wide with shock as she sees the woman from her dreams emerge, her gaze sharp and bright.

Quynh stares and wonders briefly if she has somehow traversed into the dream-world. If her body had already become mortal, turned back to dust and bones. If her soul had already left it behind, to pass into the realm of spirits.

“Am I dead?” she rasps out in her native tongue. “Truly dead?”

The woman, however, doesn’t seem to understand her. Her brow furrows as she seats herself on the cave floor, facing Quynh in silence.

Quynh decides to try again, this time asking in Sanskrit.

A glimmer of recognition appears in the woman’s eyes. “No, you are not dead.” She pauses to let it sink in. “I found you,” she says, repeating her first words. “You were dead when I found you. But you came back to life. Like me.”

“Like you?” Quynh echoes, feeling something shifting and cracking open inside her, like a great crevasse.

The woman nods.

“But—” Quynh says, her mind swirling with questions, “—how did you find me? How do you know who I am?”

The woman taps the side of her head. “I see you in my dreams. Always. I thought that maybe the gods wanted me to find you. Maybe that’s why they won’t let me die.”

Quynh mouth falls open. She honestly hadn’t even considered that the woman in her dreams might have been dreaming of _her_ in turn. Hadn’t even considered that the woman might be a real person on the other side of the world.

Her thoughts drift back towards Gautama Buddha. “Do you think we will be allowed to die now?” she asks softly.

“I don’t know,” the woman says plainly. “Maybe. I searched for you for a long time. That was my purpose.” Her voice halts and grows quieter. “And now my purpose is done.”

“I came out here to search for Gautama Buddha,” Quynh says. “I thought maybe he would be able to tell me if I am trapped in _samsara_ and how to be free of it.” She looks up hesitantly at the woman. “Maybe—if you want, we can look for him together?”

The woman studies her for a bit, before her mouth quirks up into a smile. “Sure, why not?”

Quynh finds herself smiling back, and for the first time in her life, she is content not to be alone.

They roam the desert together for years, slowly becoming accustomed to the temperaments of the wind and the sand, and becoming accustomed to each other.

Sometimes, their paths cross with various Bedouin tribes, who wonder to themselves what two strange women are doing meandering without a clan. The women do not look desert-born, and yet they seem to settle into the grooves of its dunes as if they were.

One evening, as a tribesman finishes setting up tent bolsters in anticipation of a coming storm, he inhales the air charged with the power of Baal Shamin, the lord of the heavens, and looks to the horizon where thick dark clouds are rolling through the sky.

Under the moonlight that appears faintly between the clouds, he rubs his eyes and squints. Surely he is not really seeing two people crazily wielding weapons towards the sky. And two women, at that!

“Are you seeing this?” he asks in Najdi Arabic, punching the shoulder of his brother behind him.

His brother turns around in annoyance. “What are you talking ab—?” His voice stops abruptly as he narrows his eyes, peering into the distance. “What in the Three Holy Lords is _that_?”

“How should I know?”

They stare for a while and eventually shrug, intending to bed down for the evening, but a sudden flash of lightning causes them to jump. And they gape in shock, as the bolt of lightning hits one of the women, causing her to collapse. The other woman seems to exhibit little concern, as she continues waving a sword above her head. To their utter surprise, another bolt of lightning strikes, illuminating for a split second the sharp silver glint of the sword before the second woman collapses beside the first one.

A long silence passes, enough that the other tribesmen wander over to see what the brothers are staring at. And the brothers gasp, as the women rise to their feet, their bright and raucous laughter faint upon the wind.

A small golden spark suddenly flashes between the women, and gradually it grows into a warm orange fire, around which the women cheer and dance.

“But no one survives the thunderbolts of Baal Shamin,” the tribesmen murmur to each other in confusion.

“I have heard of these wandering women,” one of them says in a hushed tone. “They have been crossing the desert for thousands of years, seeking a way back to their home in the sky. Maybe the lightning is the Lord’s way of telling them not yet.”

“Then why are they dancing?” another asks skeptically, crossing his arms.

“Because they are still graced by Baal Shamin’s presence, as we all are,” the tribesman says with a definitive sniff.

“That is true,” the others nod in agreement. “We are blessed.”

“What a sight that was,” the first brother says, shaking his head. “The way of the gods is truly strange!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. ancient religions & mythologies referenced: pre-sectarian buddhism, vedic religion, pre-islamic syrian
> 
> 2\. i took some liberties by keeping the timeline vague with respect to early buddhism, vedic religion (which predates hinduism), the conquest of several indus regions by cyrus the great (persian king), and the prevalence of pre-islamic syrian mythology in palmyra (located in ancient syria).
> 
> 3\. the ‘immortal’ soldiers – the _anausa_ – are based off those described by herodotus as integral to the expansion of the first persian empire. supposedly, the name comes from the army being consistently kept at a strength of 10,000, with each sick or dead soldier immediately replaced. there’s no real evidence that anyone in the empire actually referred to them as such, though. (but i couldn’t resist pitting so-called ‘immortals’ against - in this world - a real immortal!)
> 
> 4\. it’s been way too many years since i’ve studied attic greek, so if my conjugation is off, please let me know.
> 
> 5\. i had truly intended for this to be an enemies-to-lovers tale, but this chapter ignored it completely and wrote itself!


	3. part 3

5\. those who dance beneath the waters of the clouds

Quynh scrubs her face tiredly, her eyes swollen and red from a long bout of tears. She hasn’t cried in years, and it leaves her feeling exhausted and hollow.

She and Andromache had fought. An argument that escalated into a screaming match over something that was small and insignificant, but had touched a nerve deep inside her and— somehow, suddenly it had felt so very big and insurmountable.

It cut her deeper than any wounds she had suffered in the thousands of years that she’s been alive.

And she finds herself wondering if this is what heartbreak feels like. Like someone had pulled her heart out and clenched it between their fingers until sharp nails pierced through, letting its lifeblood drain away.

She wonders when exactly she had fallen in love with Andromache.

She buries her face in her hands and draws her limbs even closer to her body, as if trying to curl up and disappear into the long, gnarled roots of an old banyan tree behind her. 

Behind closed eyes, she recalls the years she and Andromache have spent together, the gradual twining of their lives, weaving themselves together like two long threads into the fabric of the world around them. But this split—this tear in her soul feels like a wound that cannot close, a wound that cannot heal itself. Something that lies beyond the capabilities of her immortal body.

In her mind’s eye, she sees Andromache standing before her, as ageless as the day she first appeared in her dreams. Andromache’s olive skin, its smooth façade stretched tautly over muscled biceps and strong thighs. Beneath its surface, the memory of countless wounds and burns endured. Her lean, wolf-like appearance is tough, all sharp angles and defiant glares. Distinctly unlovely to many eyes, but she is the most beautiful person Quynh has ever seen.

She has laid her head upon Andromache’s warm shoulder on cold nights. Listened to the deep rumble of her hoarse laughter, and witnessed the spark in her eyes whenever they make a thrilling new discovery. Andromache’s war-worn fingers are blunt and marred with rough knuckles and jagged cuticles, but are always, always gentle when they touch Quynh’s face. Like Quynh is something she holds dear and precious.

Quynh’s breath hitches into a sob, a profound yearning pulling up from somewhere deep and unnamable within her. She doesn’t want to lose Andromache. She doesn’t want to lose the only person in the world who can split her soul apart, but also lift it back up to the stars with a single smile.

Quynh opens her eyes and finds that a heavy rainfall has already commenced, its relentless force bowing the long branches of the banyan tree.

She leaps to her feet, heart racing at the thought that she had wasted too much time. That Andromache might have left her behind for good.

She runs through the grove of ancient towering trees, her feet slipping through dirt puddles and tripping over roots that spread across the forest floor, until she reaches the edge of the village, frantically blinking away the warm rain sluicing into her eyes. Her gaze darts desperately over the flooding rice fields, the huddles of people ducking into shelters, the main road that’s rapidly turning into thick brown sludge.

And she stops abruptly.

Andromache is there. She’s sitting cross-legged by the road, splashed with mud and soaked through to the bone by the torrential rain. Her face is grim and etched with sorrow, as she stares at the ground in front of her.

Something unfolds inside Quynh’s heart, like a fragile flower.

Andromache did not leave her. She stayed. She waited.

Quynh steps towards her, her tunic drenched and weighing heavily on her body, but her soul feels lighter, slowly filling with a newborn hope.

Andromache suddenly lifts her head, her eyes wide and naked with a vulnerability that seems to terrify her.

“You came back,” she rasps out, voice lilting in disbelief.

“I did,” Quynh says, breathing in the humid air. She can’t tell the difference anymore between the rain and her own tears streaming down her cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” Andromache says hoarsely. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Quynh shakes her head, biting her lip. “It was my fault. I’m the one who should be sorry.”

“I’m—not good with words, sometimes,” Andromache says haltingly, looking down at her hands with a hateful gaze, as if she wished to trade them away.

Quynh reaches out to take Andromache’s hands into her own. “Neither am I.”

“Now you’re just trying to make me feel better,” Andromache grumbles, ducking her head and looking off to the side.

A small smile blooms across Quynh’s features. “Is it working?”

“Only if—” Andromache says, barely audible above the thundering rainfall. “Only if you let me stay by your side.”

Quynh wills herself not to tremble. “Because I’m the only immortal you know?” she says quietly.

“No,” Andromache says, pulling Quynh close, burying her face into the dark strands of Quynh’s hair. “Because I love you.”

Quynh clings to her fiercely, her heart swelling like a tide pulled to shore by the moon.

She’s pressed right up against Andromache, and yet she wants to be even closer. To sink into her very soul, to place her heart next to hers for safekeeping.

Andromache draws back a bit, visibly struggling to keep her guard down. “It’s okay if you don’t feel—”

Quynh sobs out a laugh and cradles Andromache’s face in her hands. “Of course I love you. I didn’t know it, but I’ve loved you for a long time.”

She surges forward to press her lips against Andromache’s, and her whole being feels as if it’s been reborn again.

The rain continues pummeling down, a heavy mist descending from the clouds surrounding the distant mountain range. It swirls over the land and shrouds the _Phnom Preah_ mountain peaks, the otherworldly home of the gods.

Several villagers, who have finished their prayers of gratitude to the gods for the harvest rain, peer outside and blink in confusion at the two strange women who are locked in an amorous embrace, as if there isn’t a rainstorm going on around them.

They have the appearance of foreigners, and yet they haven’t approached the village for anything as wanderers do, seemingly content to stay rooted in the thick mud of the road.

There is something inexplicably different about them, and some wonder in hushed whispers whether they are _ahp_ , voracious glowing spirits that emerge from the mist, or _asura_ , those ancient demons who tried to drink from the water of immortality flowing from the great ocean of life.

Then the strange women burst out into bright laughter, their faces turned upwards towards the sky. And one joyously lifts the other, twirling her in circles, as if creating their own private dance. And the villagers think that perhaps they might not be cursed spirits after all, but instead _apsara_ , spirits of the clouds and waters who dance in honor of the gods.

The following morning, when the rain slows to a drizzle, they find that the two women are gone. Evaporated, as if they were never there at all. And later, when the harvest flourishes into a plentiful bounty, the villagers nod to each other and concede that the vision of the _apsara_ must have been a rare divine blessing.

Every year, they peer out during the seasonal rainstorms again to try and catch a glimpse of them, but the spirits have never returned since.

+

+1. those who build a sacred home

Quynh wraps her shawl tighter around her shoulders as she stares out at the thrashing waves of the Baltic sea. The high winds are sharp and cold this time of year above the cliffs, but she never tires of the view, the far-off river flowing back to its oceanic home.

She and Andromache had traveled here some time ago, driven by Andromache’s curiosity about whether the distant descendants of her original people, the Scythians, were doing well. But they had found out that the nomads of the region had long been absorbed into the wider Slavic population. And though Andromache hadn’t been part of a Scythian tribe for an extraordinarily long time, she still felt like a core part of her had disappeared. That it had died a quiet death, unnoticed by the world at large.

“Am I truly the last one?” she had said to Quynh, her voice sounding weary and aged.

“I think so,” Quynh had replied. “The world changes so quickly. And we are still here.”

Andromache had taken a knife and sheared off her hair just below the ears, holding her braids for a long while afterwards. She had murmured a half-forgotten prayer she hadn’t uttered since her mother’s death, and burned her braids together with strips of bark from a nearby tree. Quynh had worn white in silent observance and twined her fingers in Andromache’s hand, willing her own unspoken prayers to be heard on behalf of her beloved.

A sudden strong gust of wind brings Quynh out of her thoughts, and she turns her head to look back at the small wooden hut they had built from scratch, nestled further downhill, away from the cliff’s edge. Their own home, made with their own hands – a place that they could belong to, even if only for a short time.

She sees the door swing open, as Andromache walks out, brushing off sawdust from the bundle of firewood she had hauled inside earlier.

Of all the sights she’s seen in her long unnatural life, she thinks that perhaps this might be her most treasured one. This simple joy of seeing her beloved in front of a place sacred only to the two of them. A place that is neither spotless nor perfect, but solid nonetheless, much like their love and the ways in which they love each other.

Andromache looks up, as if feeling Quynh’s gaze upon her, and her normally stern mouth stretches into an easy brilliant smile.

Quynh returns it with a radiant smile of her own. How she wishes she could cast this moment in amber, never to be forgotten, no matter how many more thousands of years may pass for them.

Andromache lopes up in long strides towards Quynh, unbothered by the sharp gales of wind that are now intensifying with the setting of the sun. She extends a hand and says, “Come on, my love. Let’s go home.”

And Quynh takes it without hesitation, her fingers slotting through Andromache’s as if they were made to fit.

Later, as the fire dies down into embers, she utters a promise that the smoke silently takes with it to the skies above.

“Always,” she breathes out against Andromache’s lips. “I will always come home to you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. ancient religion/mythology referenced: cambodian (which was heavily influenced by hinduism)
> 
> 2\. i took some liberty with the practice of cutting or shaving hair as part of the mourning process, which was observed in various cultures, though not – as far as anyone knows – among ancient scythians.
> 
> 3\. much of this fic was inspired by the lovely instrumental song “birth” from the “big fish and begonia” (大魚海棠) soundtrack, which can be found on soundcloud.


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